


Nautical and Fascinating

by cruisedirector



Category: Master and Commander (movie), Master and Commander - All Media Types, Master and Commander - O'Brian
Genre: Age of Sail, Alcohol, Amputation, Anachronistic, Angst, Animals, Background Het, Baseball, Best Friends, Birds, Birdwatching, Blood, Boats and Ships, Canon Related, Cloud Watching, Community: mandc100, Drabble, Drabble Sequence, Evolution, Food, Friendship/Love, Guns, Hair Braiding, Hand Jobs, Heat Stroke, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Ireland, Kissing, Male Friendship, Medicine, Multi, Music, Musicians, Painting, Plants, Portraits, Premature Ejaculation, Punishment, Romance, Sailing, Secrets, Servants, Violins, Weather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-19
Updated: 2009-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 09:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Disconnected drabbles set in Patrick O'Brian's world, often movieverse, originally written for mandc100.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preserved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 forgetfulness challenge.

There were things that Killick saw, as Jack Aubrey's steward, but never mentioned. Rips in the captain's uniform, blood on his sleeve, and there might have been complaining but there would be no questions. The scent that wafted from Jack's handkerchief and the stains on his breeches simply disappeared.

So Killick must have known, Jack mused, very nearly the day it began, reading Jack's clothing the way Stephen had read Jack's flushed face and fluttering pulse. Yet when, years later, he thanked the man, indirectly, for his long silence, Killick only grumbled, claiming to have forgotten each and every time.


	2. Overlook

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 forgetfulness challenge.

When he saw the blood pooled at Jack's feet, Stephen forgot, for a moment, that he planned to meet Aubrey in a duel, to shoot at the man before Jack could put a hole in him. He forgot, too, the insults Jack had hurled at him, demanding satisfaction. He even forgot Diana's scent, and how it lingered, corrupted, on Jack's skin; there was only the tang of salt, fresh upon the air as it had been when Jack swept him from wretchedness in Mahon.

"Come, brother," said Stephen, with the memory of his own suffering falling away; and Jack turned.


	3. Something Nautical and Fascinating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 forgetfulness challenge.

"What is the weather gauge?"

Killick looked from Captain Aubrey to Dr Maturin. He suspected that the doctor remembered every nautical term which he had ever learned. But playing at lubberliness gave him a reason to consult with the captain at all times of the day and night.

Killick knew, too, that he was not the only one to suspect. "On the cloth," he complained as the captain smiled, distracted, letting ink fall to the table. The steward could only hope to divert the others in turn when Captain Aubrey took up the challenge:

"Shall I show you again, Stephen?"


	4. Reparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 punishment without naming the crime challenge.

None would have dared to lament the captain's decision within his hearing, but Jack was conscious, even more so than usual, of eyes not meeting his own and conversations silenced everywhere he walked. He perceived no challenge to his authority, certainly no questioning of his orders, yet the men looked tired and oppressed, as gray as the weather.

Jack nodded at the carpenter and his mate, both of whom saluted but did not return his stiff smile. Nagle looked as if he might weep. The crisis was over, yet Jack's sense of the Surprise as a happy ship had vanished.


	5. Churning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 illness or injury challenge.

The violent pitching of the ship made the contents of her doctor's stomach heave as well. Had Jack been there, he would have hidden a knowing grin and asked whether Stephen needed a basin; but Jack was on deck, working with the crew to catch their prey, while Stephen was trapped below with his unhappy patients.

Stephen could not afford queasiness, for few things upset wounded men so much as seeing their physician in the throes of weakness. Miserably he swallowed the bile in his throat, vowing that if he were to be sick, it would be on Jack's boots.


	6. Kindred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 Ireland challenge.

When he saw the body lying on the ground, killed by kindness (his own kindness) and the poverty around her, Stephen thought of Ireland. He had known wretched children there who had no one to feed or teach them; children for whom he had once thought he could fight, bastards like himself, whose fate he might have shared save for his own luck in youth.

He looked at this girl whom he might have saved, had he known more, had he been able to see more clearly. "I am of her caste," he said. "I will attend to the fire."


	7. Detention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 punishment without naming the crime challenge.

The thing in the cage snapped its jaws at Peter, who swallowed a shout. The captain had decreed that Calamy would assist in transporting specimens until they were stowed to Dr Maturin's satisfaction, and he had no right to complain. The penalty was lenient enough; it would have caused no hardship at all for Will, had he been given this task. Nor would Peter have minded Blakeney's punishment, whereas the younger midshipman would probably fall asleep on deck in the morning.

The furred creature hissed and spat, making Peter bobble the cage, and the doctor's glare only worsened his shame.


	8. Medicinal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 Stephen-and-alcohol challenge.

There was enough in the bottle either to clean the wound or to give Jack a swallow before cutting into him. Stephen had only a bit of cloth to offer him to bite down upon, and they could not afford any cries, hidden so ineffectually from the men whose bullets had made the surgery necessary.

No choice at all, really. The doctor knew the spot to strike, smacking Jack with the bottle just hard enough. When Jack's eyes rolled shut, the suffering in his expression softened as if he were drunk.

"It's medicinal, my dear," Stephen assured the tranquil form.


	9. Arisaema Triphyllum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For squeeful and muccamukk.

The Jack in the Pulpit grows unevenly and causes burning pains if taken fresh. But if left to stew, the leaves become softer, and an American doctor has written that the Sioux use the roots to treat sore eyes. In summer the plants produce clusters of shiny berries, bright red, as if they've laughed too long.

The spadix -- the jack -- stiffens in the spathe, covered with tiny hermaphroditic flowers. It prefers to spring up in rich moist woods, but any sufficient dark, damp hole may sustain it. Stephen has watched this one blossom, transported in a sleeping cabin.


	10. Cutting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 weapons challenge.

Why the amputation was necessary had been explained. But when Peter saw the doctor lift the blade, as Will shook his head in terrified protest, he had a great urge to push Dr. Maturin aside and defend his friend.

The saws and knives on the table, specially whetted, would be deadly if the physician slipped. And, no matter how sound Maturin appeared, Peter had heard muttered stories about his fondness for laudanum.

There was nothing to be done for it, however. The midshipman lowered his eyes as the doctor worked, praying that his hands were as steady as his gaze.


	11. Disregard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 forgetfulness challenge.

Jack knew from the slurred speech and opium-tainted breath that Stephen had taken a large dose, yet it never occurred to him that Stephen might not remember, after. He murmured Jack's name, so grateful to be touched, for his own fingers could not manage that consolation, and when he spent in Jack's unspoiled hand, Jack thought there could be no disgrace in it.

But Stephen looked at him with bewilderment when Jack alluded to it the next evening, making him wonder if he had misunderstood, and shaming him. Whether Stephen's forgetfulness was real or feigned, Jack chose to share it.


	12. Twofold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 loyalty challenge.

Twice, Stephen had chosen between his feelings for Diana and his feelings for Jack.

When he learned of their secret courtship, he found that he could not abandon his friend even to spare himself Diana's duplicity.

Then, when Jack was so low at the thought that the doctor might not join him in the Polychrest, Stephen had decided to go to sea rather than to pursue Diana in Jack's absence.

Twice, Stephen had chosen Jack.

And as he waited for dawn and their duel, he understood that however great his attachment to Diana, his love for Jack went deeper still.


	13. Nourish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 food challenge.

There was scant consolation for the crew to offer Dr Maturin after his quarrel with the captain. Bonden went to him for help with his reading, and Blakeney asked incessant questions about sea-life, but unlike Captain Aubrey, who was deeply concerned about the coming engagement with the Acheron, the doctor had no pressing preoccupations.

Killick could do little beyond continuing to bring Maturin coffee as though nothing had changed, to remind the captain of the doctor's dietary admonishments and to hope that a suggestion of rarebit, made within the hearing of both men, would bring them together to the cabin.


	14. Swelter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 rough weather challenge.

"These men are exhausted." As is their captain, though Stephen does not say so. The doctor might blame Jack's stringency on the heat, the inedible food, the unbreathable air; but Jack has not been himself since the second attack by the Acheron, the one during which he claimed that the enemy captain must hold a personal grudge.

Now it is Jack for whom the hunt is personal, as anger boils slowly in him beneath the windless sky. He blames Stephen's private frustrations about the Galapagos for their quarrel; he will not hear the quiet warning when Stephen reflects upon insurrection.


	15. Untangling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 all-dialogue challenge.

"D'you reckon they do this?"

"You shouldn't ask questions like that!"

"Why not? When he's showing me things in his books, Dr Maturin says there are no foolish questions except the ones people are too foolish to wonder about."

"You'd have to be very foolish to ask it about the captain. You and the doctor don't talk about things like this, do you?"

"We talk about it with animals."

"Animals do this?"

"Some do. Mostly with their tongues."

"Well, that's different anyway. Pass me the brush, I'll do yours. The doctor keeps his hair short, anyway."

"But the captain doesn't."


	16. Mouthful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 salacious food challenge.

"Spit it into your handkerchief if the taste offends you so very much," Stephen hissed at Jack, whose red face reflected his regret at having discomfited his friend. Seeing Stephen so happy, Jack had done his best to put on a display of manners and attempted to choke down the mouthful of hot liquid without emitting distressed noises. Regrettably, the trickle of white that leaked from the corner of his lips revealed his essential revulsion.

Flushing, Stephen turned away from Jack and made an effort to apologise. "English sailors are unused to such fine spices," he explained to their hosts.


	17. Exile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 Ireland challenge.

Any time Stephen mentioned that he might visit Ireland, Jack felt a small pain in his chest. Stephen could disappear for weeks, returning with brown skin and a closed look about him. He might reappear with signs of having been wounded. Someday, perhaps, he would never return at all.

Jack did not know much that had befallen Stephen before they had met. Nor could he grasp the connection between those events and Stephen's secret work. He knew only that some phantom from the isle kept hold of his friend even on warmer shores, and that "visiting Ireland" meant unnamed danger.


	18. Trodden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A drabble for MandC100, the challenge to revisit how Jack and Stephen met.

Stephen's fingers ached to beat the music's measure but he mastered the impulse. He had hoped not to draw attention toward himself, yet his neighbor's sweeping gestures attracted glances from other eyes than his own. The man looked so robust and appeared to be enjoying himself so utterly that Stephen could hardly bear it, when not even such a fine quartetto could distract him from his own privation.

The spectator turned, smiling at Stephen, who cut him off with unduly harsh criticism. He could not explain that this stranger's wholehearted joy, rather than his timekeeping, had caused Stephen's own distress


	19. Take Me Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 anachronism challenge.

The Tortoises had men on first and third, but from the time Mowett pulled Bonden and sent Calamy in to pitch against them, it was apparent that they had scored their last run. Pullings signaled Nagle to steal and let Blakeney pinch hit for Lamb, but the Rats were still up 8-5 in the eighth.

Jack would have gone in to hit for the Tortoises, Stephen's warnings about having an apoplexy be damned; but he couldn't be seen as playing favorites, hence he couldn't play. And Stephen, unable to tell catcher from shortstop, was of no use to either team.


	20. Outlook

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MandC100 anachronism challenge.

Stephen's finger was poised to boot the computer when Jack's voice rang across the cabin: "Do not start up that contrivance!"

"Begging your pardon," began Stephen. "I have a message that must be relayed from my anonymous account..."

"Doctor," interrupted Jack. "Sitting in the inbox is a message from harte@admiralty.gov marked 'Priority.' If I launch Outlook, and am ordered and required etcetera, there will be no delaying our departure for those reptiles you wish to study. But if the machine don't boot, there's no auto-reply."

Stephen weighed his news against his dragonflies. "Might I use the web interface?" he asked.


	21. Flightless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A triple drabble for MandC100, the challenge for the birds.

In the weeks after Peter's death, Will Blakeney thought a great deal about the cormorants of the Galapagos Islands.

Like him, they were crippled -- birds that would never fly. Yet Dr. Maturin believed that they had become so for a reason. Fighting and naturalism did not combine very well, the doctor had said; still, he knew how to fire a pistol and wield a sword, just as he knew how to save a man from an infection by cutting off an arm, if necessary.

"Even if the birds didn't need to fly, why would they want to give up their wings?" Will demanded unhappily. Dr. Maturin could offer no satisfactory answer. Though the doctor regretted that their return to the islands had been postponed, he had seemed content since his wounding, when Captain Aubrey had turned back to save his life -- a decision none had dared to question, yet which had made Will curious, nearly as much as the flightless birds.

No man's life was more valuable than the ship or its mission. Dr. Maturin had saved many of their lives, including Will's, so perhaps it had mattered more to save him in turn than to capture the prize. Yet Will did not believe that that was why Captain Aubrey had changed course.

Even after his own injury, Will had wished to spend his life in the Navy, rising to the command of a ship. Yet he knew that, had his arm been intact, Captain Aubrey might have sent him aboard the Acheron with Peter. He might have died as well, and been buried beneath the waves with a stitch through his nose.

Instead he had been isolated, left to a different struggle. And he had survived, like the cormorants.

Did God make them change? Or did they change themselves?


	22. Weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A double drabble for Ashinae.

Stephen blamed the first time on the cold that burned into his bones, reviving old agonies, leaving him with icy fingers that trembled on crewmen's wounds. Desperate for warmth, he found his way to Jack's blankets, where Jack's hands were as generous as his broad frame; and Stephen shuddered in gratitude, pleasure spilling from his eyes and his body like the ground in thaw.

The second time he blamed on the great swell that flung him over a railing and down a stair, smashing him into rough wood and unforgiving metal. Although the doctor refused to discuss how badly he was hurt, the captain insisted on being present to examine the bruises. Despite the ship's tossing, Jack's grip on the bandages was firm and sure, and his touch offered more comfort than Stephen could have found in laudanum. The wind spent its fury while the ship groaned around them, disguising his cries.

But the third time, the sea rocked them as gently as the soft upheavals of a shared bed. Outside the cabin, the moon shone hazily through warm humid air. Thus Stephen had only the tempest within himself to blame when he lured away Jack's fiddle, and kissed him.


	23. Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four connected drabbles written for the MandC100 community: the first for the sick-or-wounded challenge, the second for the teaching challenge, the third and fourth for the farewell challenge.

**Support**

Stephen Maturin had no real need of another pair of steady hands. His own were up to the task, and Higgins' were more likely to shake anxiously with the captain there.

But Stephen could not tell Jack Aubrey that he longed merely for the touch of his fingers as comfort from the pain. Nor could he admit, afterwards, that he had thought Jack might turn pale and queasy, and sought out those signs of concern as a diversion. It was more than he had any right to ask, yet after what Jack had already given him, only a small affirmation.

  
**Right-Minded**

With the wound in his side still tender, Stephen could find no comfortable position to sit on the ground. He shifted his sketchbook from one knee to the other, twisting on the unforgiving Galapagos rock beneath him.

Then he spotted Blakeney. The boy had his own drawings balanced precariously on his leg while he carefully scrawled his letters with his left hand. In the weeks he had tended him, the doctor had never heard Will complain, neither about the loss of his arm nor the need to relearn how to write.

His pain forgotten, Stephen nodded and returned to sketching.

  
**Whatever The Cost**

Once Blakeney ordered the cages left behind, left open, the finches flew off too quickly for remorse. Then the lava lizards fled, and the boobies. It was only a matter of time before the iguanas poked out their snouts, overturning their wooden crates.

Stephen reflected that it was just as well he hadn't caught a cormorant, for he would not have gone back to the ship without it, whatever the cost. Any delay might have hurt their cause, and Jack might not have understood.

A last look back, and Padeen dashed away with Stephen on his back, a flightless bird.

  
**Phantom**

The shape had flapped over the water, half-seen at a distance, making Stephen's heart sink. At first, he had thought that the cormorant must not be flightless after all.

His eyes had followed the flutter, giving him pleasure, for the curve of canvas was not the bird, merely a phantom. Then, moments later, comprehension had filled him like the breeze swelling the Acheron's sails.

His debt to Jack ebbed, withdrawing like the winged vision he would never catch. Jack had brought him ashore with love, without regret; Stephen would leave in the same way.

Even as he sighed, he smiled.


	24. Earthy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I meant to write one drabble for the MandC100 witty sally challenge, a reflection by Diana upon Jack and Stephen, but none of them cooperated. This is set during _Post Captain_.

**Countrified**

Once he calms down sufficiently to recognize the true source of his unhappiness, Stephen must admit that his present situation offers certain advantages.

He knows when Jack plans to return, leaving his mark on her.

He knows that, for all Jack's passion, a seaman does not have the subtle hands of a physician; Stephen's can convince Diana to open her door to him no matter how soon after Jack he arrives.

And he knows how to use his intimate knowledge of anatomy for their mutual pleasure -- the touch she seeks, the taste he craves -- with dear Jack none the wiser.

  
**Provincial**

When he first guesses at Stephen's attachment, Jack finds himself filled with melancholy, though he has deliberately hidden his visits to Diana. He knows that women can be heartless, but he is certain that Stephen would brook no deliberate betrayal.

A falsehood from this woman he might expect, but deception by Stephen? Never. Stephen loves him. He feels it nowhere with more certainty than with Diana, and when he suspects that Stephen has been there before him, he is neither jealous nor enraged. He takes her hungrily, well-pleased by her response to him, despite the shrewd look in her eye.

  
**Pastoral**

It is wicked even to think of it, yet Diana knows it would be simple to bring about. She must only invite them both, requesting that Aubrey come to the front door while telling Maturin to visit her privately. Stephen certainly suspects Jack already, and how could Jack be shocked to learn that she had another caller?

She has already taunted Maturin that he is all but married to the man, while Aubrey has been in the Navy all his life. A trio, she might suggest, running her fingers over their hands, a harmonious concerto, with herself as the instrument.

 


	25. Cannons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The MandC100 community had a drabble challenge where each team was given a word and asked to write as many drabbles about it as possible. My team, the Cabin Boys, were to write drabbles using the word "cannon." We wrote over thirty. These six are mine.

**Night Practice**

The gun crews didn't really need to practice firing at targets in darkness, but the sound of cannon fire disguised Jack and Stephen's early, agonized attempts together. The indiscreet screeching and uneven groans that reached Killick's ears while the crews reloaded made him cover his ears in embarrassment for the captain and doctor.

It was many nights before the noises became harmonious, even sweet, though still not anything most of the crew would want to overhear. Yet Hollum found excuses to stand outside the great cabin, where he listened as Maturin said, "Perhaps, joy, we might attempt the Vivaldi next."

  
**Aftermath (_Post-Captain_)**

"Come, brother," Stephen said, very like a dream, like a the end of a nightmare. Jack remembered nothing else for days; yet when he awoke, despite the pain and weakness, he felt joyful.

The battle was over. The prize, the devotion of his men, the reports that Diana would hear of his triumph...none mattered so much as Stephen, who forgave him without so much as an apology.

"Love..." he began, the sound as loud as a cannon in the quiet infirmary. But Stephen only shook his head:

"You have lost altogether too much blood, my dear, and must rest."

  
**Weapon Safety**

The young man's eyes wandered over specimen jars, looking anywhere but at Dr. Maturin, who repeated, "What are your symptoms?"

"I...I can't control...I always fire my cannon too quickly, if you take my meaning," the boy stammered.

Stephen was prepared to advise him that a diet high in salt might affect a nervous disposition when he did, belatedly, perceive the true problem.

"While we are at sea, you should have no opportunity for this difficulty to arise," he sighed. "You must make an effort to control your -- cannon. In the Navy, one ill-considered misfire could cost you dearly."

  
**Communication**

"What's he saying?" Jack demanded anxiously, but the doctor would not be rushed, continuing his conversation with the Brazilian merchant, who gestured severely toward the side of the Surprise.

Jack caught _embarcação_, which he thought was "ship" but could have been "fleet," and _canhão_, which he was fairly certain referred to a cannon. Then came something that, from the merchant's gesticulation, meant "gargantuan," and another that might have been "fast" or "fleeting."

"Have we fallen very far behind, Stephen?" Jack whispered.

"If you would be silent for a moment, I might be able to tell you," Stephen hissed in reply.

  
**Unmoving**

In the portrait Jack stood straight, with a cannon at his side and a sword in his hand. The likeness of the features was impressive, yet Stephen hardly knew the unsmiling admiral posed like the other stiff heroes on the gallery walls.

"He must have been a great officer," the boy at his side enthused. Stephen hid a frown, not wishing to give the appearance of contradiction. Yet the painting did not show Jack playing music, lunging into the wind, leaping from snakes, laughing at his own jokes; the man Stephen had known, the man his grandson would never know.

  
**Head in the Clouds**

"...resembles the mouth of the _Phyllidiella pustulosa_," Stephen exclaimed. "And that one, there..."

"...looks like a cannon," finished Jack drowsily.

"Not at all." The affectionate voice turned pensive. "It has the shape of the sea-slug _Aldisa erwinkoehleri_, quite an astonishing mimic of _Phyllidia_, really, though not a true flat-worm..."

Jack's gradually drooping chin attempted a nod. The brightness of the sky behind the clouds had made his eyes water. He closed them, letting his cheek come to rest against Stephen's warm shoulder.

The cloud did look like a cannon, but if Stephen preferred to see a worm...

Smiling, Jack slept.


End file.
